The little-known, cash-strapped Santorum broke through as the leading conservative contender by cutting a painstaking path through every Iowa county. Romney, the GOP's deep-pocketed national front-runner, wanted to avoid being seen as underperforming and captured the state's more urban areas with little effort.

Both of their strategies went almost perfectly according to plan.

Santorum, a fierce abortion-rights opponent, caught fire with undecided social conservatives in the campaign's final two weeks, while Romney won over undecided Republicans who were concerned about finding a candidate to beat Democratic President Barack Obama.

Their near-even finish at about 25 percent each, punctuated by libertarian-leaning Ron Paul's close third-place showing, illustrates the sharp divide in the GOP going forward and the work ahead for the candidates hoping to establish a winning coalition.

The former Massachusetts governor was declared the winner of the leadoff presidential caucuses early Wednesday by just eight votes, ringing down the curtain on an improbable first act in the campaign to pick a challenger to President Barack Obama in the fall.

Appearing hours after the caucuses had ended, Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn said Romney had 30,015 votes, to 30,007 for Santorum, whose late surge carried him to a near win.

Earlier, Romney added to his already-formidable national network by announcing the endorsement of John McCain, who twice won the New Hampshire primary and was the GOP presidential nominee in 2008.

In a sign of the acrimony ahead, Santorum said that was to be expected, and jabbed at his rival. "John is a more moderate member of the Republican team, and I think he fits in with Mitt's view of the world," he said.

After a poor showing in Iowa, Perry says he's returning to Texas to reassess his GOP campaign

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that he would head home "to determine whether there is a path forward" for his White House bid after he finished a distant fifth in the Iowa caucuses.

At times pausing to collect his emotions, Perry told supporters that he appreciated their work but that he needed to consider whether there was a viable strategy for him to restart his campaign in South Carolina.

"With the voters' decision tonight in Iowa, I decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race," Perry said, his family standing behind him.

Before Perry spoke, his advisers tried to paint the first contest in the South as the real start to his strategy and braced for a lackluster performance in the Iowa caucuses, which typically winnows the field of presidential hopefuls.

Perry entered the race in August to great fanfare only to nosedive. He had planned to make South Carolina his final stand, but the events he scheduled there for Wednesday were put on hold while he headed to Austin.

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Michele Bachmann told a small group of supporters Tuesday night that she's staying in the presidential race as the only true conservative who can defeat the sitting president, despite a bleak showing in the Iowa caucuses.

The Minnesota congresswoman was running in last place among six candidates as returns came in from the nation's first Republican presidential nominating contest.

"I believe that I am that true conservative who can and who will defeat Barack Obama in 2012," she said. "What we need is a fearless conservative, one with no compromises on their record on spending on health care, on crony capitalism, on defending America, on standing with our ally Israel."

Shortly before Bachmann spoke, her campaign manager suggested she might leave the race. Asked if he could say with certainty whether she would go forward with her candidacy, Bachmann campaign manager Keith Nahigian told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, "I don't know yet."

Nahigian added, "It's hard to tell, but everything is planned."

Many South Koreans want single Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A single, reunified Korea has long been a cherished dream of people on both sides of the world's most heavily fortified border. South Korea even has a Cabinet-level ministry preparing for the day.

And while Kim Jong Il's death last month has raised those hopes higher among some in Seoul, few are eager to talk about the cold reality: Sudden reunification could be traumatic for both countries.

Any North Korean collapse and hurried reunification, analysts say, could spell the end of Pyongyang's ruling class while flooding Seoul with refugees and causing huge financial burdens -- perhaps trillions of dollars -- for South Koreans who have only recently gotten used to their country's emergence as a rising Asian power.

Korea observers aren't predicting such a collapse or the kind of "big bang" reunification that happened in Germany, which saw the overnight fall of the communist side and its swift absorption into its Western neighbor. The new North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il's son Kim Jong Un, is fast consolidating power, winning key backing from the government and military.

Still, the extraordinary changes in North Korea following the Dec. 17 death of the man whose iron rule lasted 17 years have stirred up dreams of a single Korea among some in the South. And not just in those with memories of life before the country was divided into U.S.- and Soviet-occupied zones in 1945.

In politically crucial Ohio, Obama seeks a share of the political limelight

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is pushing his economic message in Ohio, brandishing his presidential megaphone in a politically important state to make certain his appeal to the middle class is heard amid the boisterous start of the Republican campaign for the White House.

Obama was traveling Wednesday to the most Democratic congressional district in Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, a day after Mitt Romney won Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses by just eight votes. Obama's trip signals the White House's intent to keep the president in the public eye even as the political world focuses on the GOP's selection process.

The White House's choice of Ohio for Obama's first presidential trip of 2012 underscores the state's high-profile role in presidential politics. It is a swing state that went for George W. Bush in 2004 and for Obama in 2008. A top manufacturing state, Ohio has seen its jobless rate follow the national pattern; unemployment was 8.5 percent in November compared with 9.6 percent a year before.

Obama set the tone Tuesday for a White House strategy that aims to maintain pressure on congressional Republicans while promoting an economic plan that serves as much as a policy prescription as it does a political platform for the general election.

Addressing Iowa Democrats by teleconference as the GOP caucus counting was still under way, Obama described Republicans as embracing a "theory that says we're going to cut taxes for the wealthiest among us and roll back regulations on things like clean air and health care reform, Wall Street reform, and somehow that automatically that assures that everybody is able to succeed."

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Shackled in handcuffs and flanked by three U.S. Marshals, Dorothee Burkhart scanned a Los Angeles courtroom looking for her son.

"Can you bring my son inside?" she pleaded with court officials. "Where is my son?"

Apparently she was unaware that less than two miles away, her 24-year-old son Harry Burkhart, also was behind bars suspected of more than 50 arson attacks over New Year's weekend that caused $3 million in damage.

Authorities believe Burkhart, angry over his mother's legal troubles, went on a nighttime rampage of burning parked cars a day after she made an initial court appearance last week.

On Tuesday, court documents were unsealed that revealed Burkhart's mother is charged in their native Germany with 19 counts of fraud, including failing to pay for a 2004 breast-augmentation surgery and pilfering security deposits from renters.

Rancher spots couple from the air, leading to their arrest in Utah killings, Nev. carjack try

McFarland, 24, and Atwood, 25, surrendered Tuesday in a desolate part of Nevada on suspicion of killing an elderly Utah couple, driving to Nevada in a stolen car, then shooting a woman during a botched carjacking.

The Fairview, Utah, pair were "pretty calm" when they were arrested walking in sagebrush country a few miles south of Oasis, Nev., said Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Jim Stewart.

Rancher and Elko County Commissioner Demar Dahl, also a pilot, said he knew the suspects could be in the area and kept an eye open for them while surveying his cattle herd from the air.

"We flew and looked, and sure enough we found them," Dahl told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It was just lucky we found them."

Man dies at Alaska center for chronic street alcoholics less than a month after it opens

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A man who was slurring his speech and appeared intoxicated was found dead on New Year's Day at a controversial center in Anchorage where chronic street alcoholics are allowed to keep drinking.

The center has been under fire for its unconventional approach to dealing with alcoholism in Anchorage, where advocates have been looking for new ways to help homeless alcoholics after more than 20 people -- most of them severely intoxicated -- died outdoors over a 12-month period in 2009 and 2010.

Employees checked on 54-year-old John Kort several times Sunday after a visitor noticed that he appeared drunk and was having trouble walking. Kort was escorted to his room where a manor employee lay him down on the bed and rolled him onto his side. When he was checked 40 minutes later, Kort was sitting on the floor with his head against the bed. He again was placed on his bed and on his side.

When an employee checked on him a third time, Kort was face-down on his bed, not breathing and his hands were cold, said Anchorage police spokesman Dave Parker. Police and paramedics could not revive him.

Parker said there was no suicide note. Alcohol and perhaps pills are believed to be factors in his death. An empty prescription pill bottle was found in his room.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Brendan Gibbons drilled a 37-yard field goal down the middle in overtime to lift No. 13 Michigan to a 23-20 victory over 17th-ranked Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday night.

The victory capped an impressive debut season for head coach Brady Hoke, who has led the Wolverines (11-2) back to prominence with a BCS bowl victory. Denard Robinson highlighted an otherwise unspectacular night with touchdown passes of 45 and 18 yards to game MVP Junior Hemingway.